Adopting wild animals just isn’t a good idea

August 27, 2013

"Adopting" wild animals almost never is a good idea. Most people get that.

But sometimes they break the rule because they believe it is a matter of life and death to an animal.

A Knox County woman felt that way about two deer and four raccoons she raised on her small farm. A former veterinary technician, Carol Deyo, now is in trouble with the law.

The deer were fawns when Deyo got them. One had been hit by a car and was having a seizure when two men took it to her. The other had been hit by a hay mower in a field. Its right leg was cut off.

Without help, both animals would have died.

But Deyo has been charged with two counts of breaking state law against possessing wild animals. She is less worried about the fines than the creatures themselves. They probably would not survive long in the wild. The alternative is to have them killed by a veterinarian.

There has to be a better way.

State wildlife officials are right. People have to be deterred from adopting wild animals. Again, however, the creatures themselves should not pay with their lives because humans broke the law by saving them in the first place.